And After All
by NeoVenus22
Summary: PRDT. A seventeen-year-old Conner McKnight would've laughed hysterically at the idea of coming back for Reefside High's spring program. Wonderwall tag. Complete.


Sarafu requested that I write "Wonderwall - three years later" fic. Although I also think it works as a standalone.

Disclaimer: no one mentioned belongs to me.

* * *

Conner lay down next to the lake, grass tickling the back of his neck, and closed his eyes. It felt good to just kick back and breathe for a moment. He felt like he hadn't taken a breath in days. Years.

"Conner?"

After a pause, Conner squinted open one eye, then the other. He must have fallen asleep or something, because the sun had moved overhead and was way too bright, making the figure standing by his knees nothing but a blur.

But he'd recognize that voice anywhere. "Kira? That you?"

She dropped down on the grass next to him and he sat up so she could come into focus.

"Yeah, it's me. You know, Dr. O said you left after his class this morning, but I figured you'd be out with Ethan or something. How come you're here?" she asked.

"Seemed like a good a place as any to get away," he shrugged.

"What do you need to get away from?" Kira laughed. "Alumni Week too much for you?"

A seventeen-year-old Conner McKnight would've laughed hysterically at the idea of coming back for Reefside High's spring program. Alumni Week was a chance for former students to return to Reefside's hallowed halls and share their college wisdom with juniors and seniors. He was pretty sure he hadn't gone to a single alumni lecture when he'd been in high school.

But a twenty-year-old Conner McKnight was plagued with nostalgia. And exhaustion. So while every other undergrad in the business department was making the most of their spring break in some tropical, hedonistic locale, he was sleeping in his childhood bed and sitting in on a high school science class.

"You know, you'd think the administration would at least have the decency to throw us a party or something as a thank you. I missed out on Tijuana for this, the least Elsa could do is throw a rager."

Kira grinned at him. "Now that sounds more like the Conner I know. Why'd you skip the obligatory TJ trip, anyway?"

"Came back to see you and Ethe," he said.

"Conner, we instant message each other every night," she reminded him. She ticked off the rest of the facts on her fingers. "I saw you at Thanksgiving, I saw you at Christmas, and I came to visit for a weekend only... what was it, last month?" She rolled her eyes. "Come on. Really."

Conner shrugged and redirected his gaze at the sun-dappled lake. "I just didn't want to do the whole spring break thing, all right?"

"A week of debauchery and hot girls in skimpy bikinis, and you didn't want to go," she said flatly.

He rolled his eyes. He'd already heard all of this nonsense from Ethan (more like, Ethan had clutched dramatically at his chest and declared that Conner McKnight passing up free opportunities to get laid was one of the signs of the apocalypse; Conner had thumped him, hard, and really given him something to grab his chest about) and was sort of sick of it. After all of this, after everything they'd been through, after everything _he and Kira_ had been through, and he was still getting the 'dumb, shallow jock' treatment. What did a guy have to do to be taken seriously anymore? Donate an organ? Cut off a limb?

"Seriously, what's up?" Kira tried again. "You're not sick or something, are you?"

"God, Kira. I'm not sick."

"What, then?"

"Let it go," he said flatly.

"Conner?"

"Look, I didn't need it from Ethan, and I don't need it from you," he snapped. "I came back because I missed you guys, that's all. I didn't want to waste my time getting drunk in Mexico with a bunch of people I don't even care about. And you guys are acting like it's an enormous deal."

"Well, Conner, can you blame us? You're..." she gestured helplessly, "_Conner_."

"Yeah, thanks," he muttered. "I'm so glad we had this talk."

"Oh, come on, Con. Don't be mad. You can't blame us for being suspicious. I mean, you went to Brazil for spring break last year."

"Yeah, except that was a team thing," he said. "_For school_."

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry." Conner glared at a rock. "I'm _sorry_, Conner, okay? You're right. You're not the same guy. I should know better."

"Yeah," he said sourly, "you should. You're my best friend, Kira. Don't do the same thing to me that everyone else does." He sighed. "You know, it's funny. Up at State, they take me seriously. People actually look up to me, you know? But I come back here for three days, and I'm still Conner McKnight, dumb jock soccer legend."

"You forgot 'egomaniac,'" she said, grinning a little. He cast her a nasty glare and her grimaced. "Sorry. Not helping."

"It's just... you _know_ me. I thought it'd be different. But we come back here, and it's the same."

"Maybe it's just a hometown thing, you know? I mean, I spent all day yesterday at the high school, and it's still pretty much a Conner McKnight shrine, never mind that you graduated two years ago. Did you know they retired your jersey number?" He blinked, oddly pleased. He hadn't known that. "Getting thrown into all of that again, and it's hard to forget that we're not still in high school. It's hard to explain."

"I guess." Conner supposed he couldn't really fault his friends for regressing. Just that morning, crammed onto one of the stools in the back of Dr. O's lab, he'd forgotten himself for a moment and raised a hand during the lecture. It was easy to forget oneself. But that didn't mean it didn't sucked when his friends assumed the worst of him. He'd never been a slacker. The best student ever? Not by a long shot. But he wasn't dumb, and he didn't coast on looks and charm and status. It hadn't been true in high school, and it wasn't true now.

The two sat in silence for a long time, using the tranquility of the lake as a buffer. It was so quiet here, so peaceful, that it was easy enough after awhile to pretend that nothing else existed.

"I remember the last time I was here," Conner murmured thoughtfully. "The only time I was here. Remember? You said this was your special place, where you came to think. You kissed me. Right over there," he said, pointing, smirking.

Kira's cheeks went pink. "You can't possibly remember that. That was three years ago."

"It was a pretty good kiss," he defended himself, then leaned back. "How come we never got together?"

Kira shrugged, "Timing? The Ranger thing, then you were with Krista..."

"I was only with Krista for two months before she evacuated to Ohio State," he said. "Not so much as a goodbye, she wouldn't answer my calls, and the email address she gave me was bogus."

"She was always kind of a bitch," Kira said with a sympathetic smile. "We all thought so, we just didn't want to tell you. You seemed pretty into her."

"Krista was all right," he said, the truth. "She was no you."

Kira looked away.

"So was it really just a timing thing?" said Conner, trying to sound offhandedly casual, even though he was now burning to know. He didn't know what to take from the fact that Kira had brought it up at all. "Are you saying there was a window after the Ranger thing?"

"I don't know. Maybe. I thought you were over it, though, so I didn't really give it much thought."

"So it came down to me or Trent, and you picked Trent because I didn't step up?"

Kira pursed her lips. "It wasn't exactly like that. It was-"

"Complicated?" he finished for her, and after a breath, they shared a tired smile. "Yeah, I know. You like simple. Simple is good."

For some reason, this made Kira chuckle. "You are continually proving yourself to be anything but simple, Con."

Which was more or less exactly the point he'd been trying to make. But he decided now was not the best time to remind her he was right. Instead, he leaned back on his elbows and surveyed her thoughtfully. "Don't try to change the subject. You and Trent."

"You _know_ we broke up. Awhile ago."

"Too complicated?"

"The only complication was distance. We broke up the same way you and Krista did, except," she smiled at her hands, "Trent was a little nicer about it."

"The email address was legit?" said Conner, his way of letting her know he wasn't offended or anything.

"Yeah. Anyway. It was my idea. I'm not very good long-distance."

"You keep in touch just fine." At least once a week, he could count on an email from Kira, and he knew the same was true for Ethan, Trent, Dr. O, Hayley.

"You know what I mean," she chided lightly, not to be deterred. Clearly she had some dirty laundry she wanted to hang. Conner zipped his lip. If nothing else, he'd learned patience. More or less. "It... wasn't the right time, for me and Trent."

"It's never the right time, is it," he said despite himself. But he wasn't thinking about him and Kira, necessarily. He looked back at the lake and thought about being back at high school, looking at these kids and thinking about all the potential friendships he'd never had because he'd let his ego get in the way. The girls he'd rejected for whatever reason. The people he'd teased in the comfort of his soccer buddies. The distance between him and Eric. He'd made amends, or had tried to, and had become a better person, or had tried to, but he couldn't help wondering what could have been, what would have been, if he'd been a Ranger earlier.

That was what they didn't teach, he thought. High school, college, it didn't matter. It was about higher learning, studying up on business or computers or music theory or art, but everything else you had to learn for yourself.

Conner got to his feet, the abruptness of the gesture startling Kira visibly. He wiped grass off his palm and extended his hand to her. She took it wordlessly. Once upon a time, the gesture would've made him tingle everywhere, but now it just... it just was. Right place, wrong time. Conner let her fingers go. "I've gotta get back to the school," he said. "I'm supposed to be telling the sports scholarship kids how to balance athletics and academics."

"And how do you do that, exactly?" she asked with a twinkle in her eye.

"Never sleep?" he said.

"At least you don't still have to save the world."

Conner shrugged. "Ah, it wasn't so bad." He tossed an arm around her shoulders. "Monsters, midterms, it's all the same."

Kira laughed at that, harder than was really necessary, but Conner just grinned at the top of her head and allowed the sound to flood through him. He'd done what he could. And he could still do more.

It wasn't so bad.


End file.
